We had to avoid that mistake.
I checked my imagery overlays. Intel used a photo of an area frequented by al-Zarqawi. On it were drawn colored lines to indicate his probable destinations. Each color represented a different path, or the level of frequency used. I wanted to see if al-Rahman was going on an established route.
I had no idea where he was going, but I kept him in sight for my whole shift. We never lost him as he drove between villages, meeting with facilitators. When I heard the two knocks on the GCS, I was relieved. I didn’t realize how tense I had become.
Sheikh Abd al-Rahman’s truck was on the highway when the new pilot showed up. In normal conditions, we would brief the incoming crew and swap seats. When chasing the spiritual adviser, we had the autopilot off, which meant we had to keep our hands on the controls while swapping seats.
“Ready?” I said.
The new pilot nodded. He squeezed himself into the narrow space between the pilot’s couch and the rack of computers. He then reached over my shoulder and took control of the stick. He had to figure out what I was doing with the aircraft and match the pressures on the spring-loaded controls. Once he was good to go, I ducked under his arm and out of the seat. He slid around and sat down.
I took out the keyboard and set it on the table between the sensor operator and the new pilot. I sent a note to the TOC in chat.
DN31> new crew in seat.
TF145TOC> c.
Eventually, we determined that al-Zarqawi traveled often with al-Rahman, and through that we established al-Zarqawi’s pattern of life with a high level of confidence. After two weeks, we could identify where on the route he was based with a mere glance at the HUD picture just as we had with the Captain. We had seen the same buildings enough times to nearly memorize his every move. We knew exactly where he was for the 480 hours leading up to the night of June 6, when the Task Force finally gave the nod to the Predators to strike.
I was watching the mission with the other pilots in the squadron. This was our chance to show the special operations community what we could do.
“Lasing,” the sensor operator said.
I returned my focus to the wall-mounted plasma screen. The truck grew large in the image. I expected “LRD Lase Des” to flash on the HUD picture to indicate the laser was firing. The letters were a shortened note signifying the Laser Range Designator was firing and marking the target. In the cockpit, “laser firing” should have been flashing as well.
Nothing showed.
Inside the cockpit, the sensor operator had forgotten to arm the laser. Maybe the pilot had forgotten to tell him. Both should have gotten it right. This was not a good start.
“Laser’s not armed,” the pilot said.
The sensor replied calmly.
“Arming.”
They were both calm, professional. They had time to get it right.
Then the picture disappeared. No graphics or image showed. Only a uniform gray remained.
“Oh no,” someone behind me said.
They had given the crew clearance as al-Zarqawi emerged from Sheikh al-Rahman’s house. Their goal had been to hit the truck just before the two pulled out of the driveway, but then the screen went dark.
“What the hell happened?” the MCC roared.
I put my hand over my face. I knew what he had done.
The sensor operator had NUC’d his targeting pod. Prior to any shot, sensors typically wanted to calibrate the targeting pod to ensure the best picture possible. The nonuniformity correction, or NUC, accomplished this task in under half a minute.
Computers managed the inner workings of the Predator, like most modern aircraft, and the computers worked only if the software was valid. The factory issued frequent software updates as we identified glitches or requested improvements. The most recent change had left a bug in the system that we were learning to work around. A function was added to activate the keyboard space bar as a “hot key” that when hit would repeat the previous command. So if a sensor armed the laser as his last command, then hitting the space bar would arm it again.
Simple, really. And it worked only on the sensor’s console. The pilots didn’t have the capability.
As they lined up the shot on al-Zarqawi, the sensor operator had inadvertently brushed against the space bar as he reached to arm the laser. NUC was the last command in the system, and the space bar had sent the system into a twenty-three-second calibration that could not be reversed. The misstep wasn’t the factory’s fault. It was clearly a sloppy hand motion by the sensor operator. It was avoidable.
The twenty-three seconds passed before the house emerged from the gray screen as if from a fog. The truck and al-Zarqawi were gone.
The ops cell fell completely silent. I didn’t have to say anything. Everyone knew instinctively that the targeting pod had been NUC’d. Privately, everyone metaphorically wiped their brows in relief that they weren’t the guys in the seat.
The military world had just watched that crew screw up the biggest shot of the Iraq War.
Fortunately, another Predator followed the truck as it continued its rounds and we didn’t lose him. But we lost our chance to do the strike.
The next day, June 7, the Task Force authorized another strike. They kicked the Predator far enough from the target that the crew could barely see the building. This time, F-16s from Balad dropped GPS-guided bombs on the house.
The community felt an enormous amount of frustration in the wake of the failed air strike. We had worked so hard to track al-Zarqawi, only to be denied the endgame following the self- induced glitch. The missed opportunity was a simple error. There was no incompetence involved, no unprofessionalism. Just a simple mistake that was as statistically probable as a bad missile or a mechanical breakdown in the laser. But it happened on one of the biggest missions in the community’s history, with what felt like the whole world watching.
We’d made important shots and mistakes before, but this one was a huge setback. The Task Force scaled back Predator strikes after the failed mission. They claimed that they needed our persistent imagery more than our strike capability. But we all knew the real reason. Despite all the strides we’d made, we were back to proving ourselves again.
The RPA community had to eliminate those annoying statistical anomalies if we wanted to be given the privilege of taking the next critical shot.
CHAPTER 14
Camp Cupcake
It was four in the morning local time and the sky was still dark. I could see the lights of Al Udeid Air Base sparkling around me. There were no blackout conditions this far from the fighting.
The base was the forward headquarters of Air Forces Central, which oversees all American forces in the Middle East. The air base, west of Doha, Qatar, was also home to the Air Force’s headquarters in charge of the air war over Iraq and Afghanistan.
We milled about the parking ramp while maintenance unloaded the cargo bins from the C-17. The heat and humidity in January was enough to give me pause as I emerged from the dry aircraft interior. All the passengers, officer and enlisted alike, unloaded the baggage from the bins and lined them up on the tarmac to pass through Qatari customs and then through the Patriot Gate.
Named in the wake of September 11, 2001, the Patriot Gate was really just a plywood holding area where checked passengers waited for final boarding on the way to Iraq, to Afghanistan, or back home. Troops from years past had scribbled messages and their names on the plywood. The gate became a living memorial to those who had passed through.
I wasn’t passing through or leaving. I’d worked out a deal to spend a year in Qatar working reconnaissance issues on the Air Force staff. I needed to leave Nellis Air Force Base if I wanted to get promoted and take command of a squadron. The one deployment to Iraq wasn’t enough and I needed staff time. To get the year, I had to string together three consecutive four-month tours, which was th
e Air Force standard deployment length at the time. I had to fly halfway across the world and work in an office to accomplish what the Air Force required of me as a professional.
Gringo, a fellow Predator pilot, met me outside the terminal. He was another 17th alum. I was his relief, there to assume his duties so he could rotate home. We threw my bags into the back of his truck and drove toward the barracks area.
“We’re in Ops Town now,” he said. “This is where all the flying missions are done.”
I vaguely remember seeing the buildings as we flew past in the darkness. Most of the squadrons were dark. A Green Beans Coffee shop already had a line out the door. The patrons were a mix of new arrivals and aircrew coming in for their morning briefs. Gringo steered the pickup onto what looked like a road to nowhere snaking off into the darkness.
“Ops Town was the original base when we moved in,” he said. “Most of the buildings are relatively new, but a few, like the pax terminal, were here when we arrived. Since then, the base has really expanded.”
We approached a heavily armed gate. The metal bars remained locked in place as we drove up. On either side were two-story towers fashioned in an Arabic theme. Qatari flags atop the towers flapped in the light breeze. Gringo swerved onto a side road and passed the checkpoint.
“That’s the Qatari Air Force. We don’t go in there.”
“What do they fly?” I asked.
“Beats me,” Gringo said. “Haven’t seen them fly anything.”
A bright spot on the horizon grew larger as we approached. At first I thought it was the coming dawn. But as we got closer, it turned into a massive camp. The Coalition Village, or C-Town, was the living area on the base for the Americans and other Western allies. C-Town boasted thousands of dorms built in triple-wide and triple-long prefab buildings. At the center of the area was a large open-air tent (just the top, no sides) that looked like one of Bettie Page’s lost bras.
The Bra, as someone cleverly named it, was the center of social life for Al Udeid. The USO performed shows there. A gym, bar, movie theater, coffeehouse, Olympic-size pool, Base Exchange (BX), and small bevy of fast-food joints surrounded the Bra. It was a pretty nice setup as far as deployments went. Better than my tool-shed in Fallujah.
Gringo dropped me off at our room, a cramped, paneled space dominated by a bunk bed and two metal cabinets. Gringo and I shared the space for a couple of days until he left for home. I got it all to myself after that. Standing in the middle of the room, I considered myself lucky. The younger guys had to sleep two or three to a room in the same space.
I took a couple of days to get settled in. The military required numerous briefings to set the tone for each assignment. But the longer I was there, the more I sensed something was off about the base. I said as much to Gringo over a beer before he left for good. Gringo eyed me for a second. Then he nodded at a kid across the Bra.
“See him?”
The kid was in the Army, judging by his uniform. He hobbled awkwardly on crutches across the crushed white rock. His lower right leg was in a cast.
“Yeah.”
“The Army,” Gringo said, “sends their wounded here to recuperate.”
“I thought they went to Germany,” I said.
“Those are the ones not coming back. That kid will be back in the fight in a couple weeks. So the Army sent him here for rest so he could return quicker.”
“Oh,” I said.
Gringo smiled.
“Those guys call this place Camp Cupcake.”
“I can see why,” I agreed.
“Everything is easy here,” Gringo said. “At least that’s the impression.”
My job wasn’t easy. I was in Qatar to manage fourteen reconnaissance platforms in CENTCOM’s area. It was my job to make sure they were doing the correct missions in both theaters as well as a new hot spot developing in Yemen. I didn’t really meddle in the daily operations. Mostly, I pushed paper since the platforms were fairly self-sufficient. There always seemed to be some crisis I had to solve to keep the planes flying.
By the spring, I’d been at Al Udeid for four months. You really couldn’t see any seasonal change in the environment, since nothing grew on the base. The crushed white rock remained just as dead as before. The first I noticed the change in seasons was when the mornings became foggy.
I normally walked the mile from my dorm to my office. Walking was exercise. Working sixteen-hour days had taken its toll in only two months. I shed workouts from my schedule in favor of a few hours of restless sleep. I gained weight and it didn’t make me feel good. I missed flying. There was an inherent healthiness to performing tasks with my hands and seeing their outcomes.
Staff work was not a natural talent of mine. It was boring. I didn’t take well to the strictures of paperwork and the staff processes that went with it. And all of this would be for nothing if I didn’t get promoted.
—
The Air Force promotion board released its list in the spring while I was at Al Udeid.
Every officer in my year group was on edge in the weeks leading up to its release. The Air Force held three promotion boards. The first two boards didn’t count, in my mind, as around 1 percent of the officers made rank through them. The third and last board was where most of us would learn if we made it.
I shared an office with Muggles, who’d gotten his call sign from the Harry Potter books. We had been academy classmates, which placed us on the same promotion board. I hadn’t known Muggles personally at school, nor had our paths crossed once commissioned as officers. After fifteen years, Muggles was nearly unrecognizable. He was my height and a little heavier. While my hair was graying on the sides, his had receded significantly.
We became fast friends instantly. We drank beers at the Bra and ate dinner together, when we could fit it into our sixteen-hour days. The night before the list was made public, we decided to stick around the office and see if the Al Udeid leadership saw the list early. Typically, the Air Force released the list to the command staffs. The Wing and Group commanders would then notify the affected members the night before the official release. Usually, they called only the guys who didn’t make rank. They were given the usual platitudes and told not to come in the next day so they wouldn’t have to be around the celebrants.
We both thought we’d made the cut. But there was something about being evaluated, graded against others, that put us on edge. With nothing to do but wait, we sat in the conference room anticipating the news. We didn’t talk. There was nothing to say while we sweated over our fates. At the time, I was one of two officers from the RPA community on track to command. Mike was the other. If we both got promoted, we’d be the first RPA pilots to take command. Fighter pilots looking for command time sponged up most of the slots.
I have no idea how long we sat there, sipping water and waiting. The other staff members were long gone when my boss popped his head in and saw us. Usually, he wore a broad smile. This time he frowned.
“What are you guys waiting for?”
“Waiting on the promotion news, sir,” I said.
He looked at Muggles and then me.
“Has anyone called you guys?”
“No, sir.”
He nodded.
“Then you made the list. Get out of here.”
Sure enough, the list was published the next day. I marveled at my name. I did the math and determined that I would pin on lieutenant colonel in January. Mike was far enough up the list that he would probably make rank in December. I let out a sigh of relief. I was still on track to get command, a goal I’d wanted since I’d joined the Air Force. But first I had to survive a year on staff pushing paper.
—
It did not go well for me. The Army constantly complained about the lack of air support and blamed the reconnaissance community for the Army’s planning failures. I did the best I could to meet ever
y requirement. I put more effort into biting my tongue. I simply could not blanket the sky with stars.
By mid-May, my frustrations came to a head. After four months I had grown weary of hearing Predators being blamed for everyone’s mistakes, especially the Army’s. During a biweekly videoconference with units in Iraq and Afghanistan, one of the collection managers briefed us on a soldier who had been separated from his unit and died in a flash flood. The collection manager, an Army captain, blamed Predator for the whole incident. I checked my mission logs. No Predators were tasked to support the unit.
I couldn’t hold my tongue as the captain heaped the blame on the RPA community. I keyed the mic.
“Hang on a second.”
I rifled through the papers on my desk and found the log.
“Captain,” I began. “I don’t appreciate you blaming the Predator for your failures. I cannot understand how, when my asset is so abused, that you refuse to follow doctrine in its employment. You treat them like a tank. This model failed in 1942 and continues to fail today. It is the principle reason you are losing this war.”
The Air Force J-2 officer at CENTCOM started laughing on the screen. I couldn’t tell if he was laughing at me or with me. The Army and Marine officers in the room were less amused. I pressed on anyway. I’d already started the rant. The damage was done. I might as well finish it.
“I appreciate the fact that you consider the Predator invaluable. What I can’t understand is why you cancel operations if one is not available. When I was a ground pounder, I was trained to develop a plan based on worst-case and best-case scenarios. We also made a plan based on what we actually expected to get. Seems to me you only make one plan that hinges on Predator support or nothing at all.
“As for your troop, I am truly sorry he died. But I ask you one question: Where was his leadership? Where was his squad leader? He should have had eyes on all his guys while on foot patrol. Where was his platoon leader? His company commander? No, Captain, that young man did not die because a Predator was assigned to a unit eighty miles away.”
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